My comments and opinions are mine and mine alone. My goal is not to argue, debate, or sway. I simply want to express myself.
I've worked with John for a little over 7 years now. He is a decisive, intelligent, and fantastic leader whom I would follow to any company. Period. I understand that excuses are not requested here, only results. Well, we've been hiring roughly a new person every month since beginning with Trimble. A huge breath of fresh ideas and innovations have been infused into SketchUp's (pale?) skin. It's no mystery that development on the SketchUp client slowed near the end of our time at Google. However, the improvements that I've seen over these short months have been astounding to me. I feel like everyone is very excited for the huge potential and future for SketchUp. Albeit, many wholes have yet to be filled, but that's a challenge we're prepared to face. Will you be blown away with the next version of SketchUp? I don't know. We'll find out. Ripping a software infrastructure out of a company (especially Google) and setting it up in another company isn't exactly like moving a tent between two camp grounds. We're working fast and furious to deliver great products (because SketchUp is only part of our portfolio), but it may take some time to see the strides of innovation that we expect from ourselves (let alone the expectations of SketchUp's passionate community). Patience is a luxury that no software company can ask of its users, and I won't do so today. If you've used SketchUp to successfully complete a project in the last month, year, or eight years, then we've done our job. Of course, we want all SketchUp users to continually find success with SketchUp every day, and if they don't they should absolutely explore other options. Competition does wonders for innovation as well (I learned that at Google 
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Many thanks for lending me your time and attention.
Cheers!